Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The Anglican Covenant and the "Dominant Melody"

The proposed Anglican Covenant is
un-American. More precisely, the proposed Covenant conflicts with the ethos of
The Episcopal Church (TEC), an ethos defined not by sexuality but issues of
authority, ecclesiastical culture, and scripture.

TEC tends to be skittish with
respect to episcopal authority. On the one hand, we recognize the importance of
bishops. The history of Scottish nonjuror Bishops ordaining the first American
bishops and the belated recognition of those bishops by Canterbury is well
known because of the centrality of bishops to our polity. Similarly, most TEC diocesan
bishops are cherished as icons of unity and our connection to the larger church
even when their leadership and authority are questioned.

On the other hand, TEC is consistently
wary of episcopal authority. Our bicameral General Convention, diocesan
standing committees and annual conventions, elected bishops, and many other
aspects of TEC polity intentionally limit episcopal authority. Indeed, emotionally
charged concerns about episcopal authority still occasionally surprise me,
e.g., comments about selecting a bishop instead of a lay person or priest as
TEC chief operating officer, comments focused not on the individual selected but
a general wariness about enlarging episcopal authority.

Our mixed feelings about
episcopal authority emerge out of our ecclesiastical culture. For better and
worse, that cultural ethos is individualistic and egalitarian, attributes reflective
of our national culture. Both attributes are also arguably biblical – but only
when held in tension with the communal. Jesus instructed his followers to love
one another. John’s gospel portrays Jesus as the vine and his followers as the
branches; Paul’s epistles describe Jesus as the head and Christians as parts of
a body. These metaphors intimately connect Christians in community with one another
and with Jesus.

Historically, Episcopalians have
struggled to balance connectivity and individual autonomy. Embracing full
communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) exemplifies a
high point in this balancing act. TEC recognized that Christian unity was of
greater value than was consistently maintaining our understanding of ecclesial authority.
Our bold acceptance of the ordination of existing ELCA clergy as valid enabled
TEC and ELCA to chart a mutual path of present communion and future convergence.

Similarly, TEC clergy and laity
generally hear the message of scripture colored by a dominant melody that
affirms the dignity and worth of all people. Everyone – absolutely everyone –
is made in God’s image. Consequently, people within TEC hear a scriptural
mandate to ordain people based on calling and gifts, not marital history,
gender, or sexual orientation. Increasing numbers of non-TEC Anglicans hear the
same dominant melody.

However, loud voices from some other
provinces of the Anglican Communion hear a radically different melody in
scripture, sometimes claiming that it is scripture’s one true melody, which
everyone must sing to be faithful to Jesus. This melody has prompted calls,
often amplified in the media, for TEC to adopt a more authoritarian episcopate,
to disenfranchise laity in episcopal elections, and to preserve traditional
gender roles and sexual ethics. Diminishing numbers of TEC voices echo this
melody; most who want to sing this melody have decamped for what they hope are
more congenial choirs. The latest high profile defection was St. Luke’s parish
in Bladensburg, MD, leaving for the Roman Catholic Church.

Christian unity is necessarily,
though sadly, more mystical than organic. If this were not true, then only one
branch would be the true branch of the vine and the other branches among whom
organic unity does not exist – the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and
various Protestant denominations – would all be heretics. Thankfully, most of
the Church formally abandoned such thinking in the last century. For example, ELCA
and TEC were both fully part of the body of Christ even before anyone dreamt of
organic intercommunion. Similarly, TEC, the various North American splinter
groups, and Anglican provinces distressed by TEC actions remain mystically
united as branches of the vine that is Christ, regardless of what they (or we!)
say.

Authoritarian ecclesial
structures almost inevitably lead to further schism and division. There is no
reason to think that the proposed Anglican Covenant with its implicit effort to
define orthodox belief and explicit centralized authority structure (i.e., the
disciplinary process) would be an exception to that generalization.

In fact, some provinces in the
Anglican Communion have already decided de facto to exit. A global consortium
of dissident provinces and voices (the Global Anglican Futures Conference – GAFCON)
has initiated steps to establish alternative instruments of communion and unity
among themselves that exclude TEC and like-minded Anglican provinces. Those
moves seem to have an irreversible momentum. A unified Anglican Communion now
exists only in appearance and not substance, a disparity whose roots probably
predate the current conflicts over gender and sexual orientation.

Nevertheless, TEC remains one
branch of the larger vine that is Christ and has many branches. If the Anglican
Communion adopts the proposed Covenant and subsequently relegates TEC to
second-class status, so be it. This possibility feels sort of like historical déjà
vu, a repeat of what happened following the American Revolution. Those events did
not cripple the nascent TEC nor permanently impair the Anglican Communion.

Indeed, the mystical unity of the
Church transcends every division, challenging us to demonstrate the visible
unity of the Church in spite of its organic fractures. Do we, for example,
invite TEC dissidents or schismatics to tea or to an ecumenical prayer service
as often as we do others with whom we have equally strong basic disagreements
(the Roman Catholics, the fundamentalist Baptist, the Latter Day Saints, etc.)?
Do we show more love to members of other faiths (Buddhism, Judaism, etc.) than
to those of our own tradition with whom we disagree?